I don't understand how they could've retained those types of rights. In Canada, everything below a certain depth belongs to 'the Queen', but in reality this means that the government exercises total control of mineral rights and can lease them to exploitation companies. Because this happened long before our constitution was patriated, I'd have assumed that this was a feature of constitutional monarchy from the UK.

This is a case where, if read literally, it makes perfect sense except that the social and legal realities mean that it's totally absurd.

Doc Batarang:I don't understand how they could've retained those types of rights. In Canada, everything below a certain depth belongs to 'the Queen', but in reality this means that the government exercises total control of mineral rights and can lease them to exploitation companies.

I have always assumed this anyway. Daily Fail just angling for an angle. </Brit>

Prima nocta? You mean that ancient right fabled in myth and legend which never actually existed?(Plus, even in the old days, the number of virgins, even strictly technical ones, coming to the altar was pretty damn limited. A lot of creative accounting was done to make sure birth dates were marked down as exactly nine months after, or at worst, a seven and a half month pregnancy ending in the birth of an eight pound kid.)

Mineral rights are often owned, and traded, separately from surface ownership, and whoever owns the mineral rights can come in and plonk down an oil rig on your north forty and there isn't a damn thing you can do about it.

In the real world, Jed Clampett wouldn't get a dime from the oil on his land.

cynicalbastard:Prima nocta? You mean that ancient right fabled in myth and legend which never actually existed?(Plus, even in the old days, the number of virgins, even strictly technical ones, coming to the altar was pretty damn limited. A lot of creative accounting was done to make sure birth dates were marked down as exactly nine months after, or at worst, a seven and a half month pregnancy ending in the birth of an eight pound kid.)

It's the SECOND child that takes nine months, the first one can come at any time.

Doc Batarang:I don't understand how they could've retained those types of rights. In Canada, everything below a certain depth belongs to 'the Queen', but in reality this means that the government exercises total control of mineral rights and can lease them to exploitation companies. Because this happened long before our constitution was patriated, I'd have assumed that this was a feature of constitutional monarchy from the UK.

This is a case where, if read literally, it makes perfect sense except that the social and legal realities mean that it's totally absurd.

As far as I understand it, they never had the rights, the Duchy of Cornwall (The estate, not the Prince himself) have had the rights since the 14th century when the estate was created. However the labour government passed a law in 2002 stating that all mineral rights had to be registered with the land registry by the end of 2013.

It sounds like what's actually happened is that the Duchy are asking that Deeds are updated to specifically states that the deed doesn't include mineral rights. The owners of the surface land can object, but they would have to prove that the rights have been transferred to them, in other words they would probably have to be on their deed already.

Though the Daily Fail would have us believe that Charles is personally going round throwing rocks through windows and shiatting in their flowerbeds like an upper class A-team bad guy of the week forcing them to hand over their mineral rights which is the only thing that stands between them and abject poverty.

Personally, I would rather that the duchy, which is headed by an avowed environmentalist, has the rights. I would think that is much less likely that the rights would be used.

Lee Jackson Beauregard:Mineral rights are often owned, and traded, separately from surface ownership, and whoever owns the mineral rights can come in and plonk down an oil rig on your north forty and there isn't a damn thing you can do about it.

In the real world, Jed Clampett wouldn't get a dime from the oil on his land.

If you own the surface why don't they have to get permission before altering it?

Foolish Brits. They should just have done it the American Way -- extend Eminent Dominion to mean taking private property for any reason at all instead of just in 'The National Good'.

Less fuss. When a new shopping mall needs to go in someplace where folks live, why just enact the rite, sweep aside all lawsuits, pay the folks the current estimated value for their land and bring in the bulldozers.

They could do as my city does. If you don't pay your property taxes on time, your land goes up for public auction immediately. No screwing around here with waiting a few years to get the bill up into the thousands. Tax time ends and the next day your home is in the Tax Sale listings.

Of course, this might just have something to do with their situation: a law introduced by the Labour government in 2002 that stated all manorial rights would be lost if not registered with the Land Registry within an 11-year window.

Now a number of landowners across the country are applying for manorial rights before that window closes this year.

Lee Jackson Beauregard:Mineral rights are often owned, and traded, separately from surface ownership, and whoever owns the mineral rights can come in and plonk down an oil rig on your north forty and there isn't a damn thing you can do about it.

In the real world, Jed Clampett wouldn't get a dime from the oil on his land.

Actually, he probably would. IANAL, but in my experience, mineral rights are assumed to go with surface rights unless specifically reserved at the time of sale/transference.

jigger:If you own the surface why don't they have to get permission before altering it?

In a lot of states, the mineral owner has a kind of superiority of ownership. They have a right to get the value of the minerals, and if that means tearing up the surface, well, bummer for the surface guy. Surface owners are generally required to be compensated at fair market value for their loss, though that might be cold comfort for the guy with a pump jack on his front lawn.

I'm kind of seeing this from both sides, as I have mineral interests with no surface that stand to make me some good money with a wee bit of luck. I also have surface interests I pretty much had to sacrifice because I only held part of the minerals, and there was no way my not signing was gonna stop the drilling companies.

Yeah, guns rights do soooooo much when the federal government, or some other government subdivision, exercises its "sovereign right" to eminent domain, civil forfeiture, escheat, or expropriating your property for refusal to pay your "voluntary" taxes.

Americans don't have any better rights to their own property than Englishmen, and are no more likely to rise against their "sovereign" government than Englishmen are.

The guns don't mean shiat.

Finally, as big a dipshiat as Prince Charles is, he just happened to the British public. Our elected Congress is a motley assortment of nincompoops being held in a chokehold by some dumb orange sack of shiat who has the power to checkmate the POTUS despite being elected only by a few thousand witless asses from the suburbs of Dayton, Ohio.

Pinko_Commie:Doc Batarang: I don't understand how they could've retained those types of rights. In Canada, everything below a certain depth belongs to 'the Queen', but in reality this means that the government exercises total control of mineral rights and can lease them to exploitation companies. Because this happened long before our constitution was patriated, I'd have assumed that this was a feature of constitutional monarchy from the UK.

This is a case where, if read literally, it makes perfect sense except that the social and legal realities mean that it's totally absurd.

As far as I understand it, they never had the rights, the Duchy of Cornwall (The estate, not the Prince himself) have had the rights since the 14th century when the estate was created. However the labour government passed a law in 2002 stating that all mineral rights had to be registered with the land registry by the end of 2013.

It sounds like what's actually happened is that the Duchy are asking that Deeds are updated to specifically states that the deed doesn't include mineral rights. The owners of the surface land can object, but they would have to prove that the rights have been transferred to them, in other words they would probably have to be on their deed already.

Though the Daily Fail would have us believe that Charles is personally going round throwing rocks through windows and shiatting in their flowerbeds like an upper class A-team bad guy of the week forcing them to hand over their mineral rights which is the only thing that stands between them and abject poverty.

Personally, I would rather that the duchy, which is headed by an avowed environmentalist, has the rights. I would think that is much less likely that the rights would be used.

Hear hear! Or whatever... Charles is known for being more than a bit of a conservationist/ environmentalist. It may very well be that he is going though the legal process of tying up the rights formally so that individuals can *not* claim them and sell them to Moskva Mining Corp. or what have you.